Day 17 - Istanbul to New York

My cold isn't getting any better. Not only am I walking around like a crack addict looking for a fix, I've also developed a horrible sore throat and cough. The only thing that seems to help my cough appears to be ice lemon tea that comes in a can. Since both of us were now suffering from the effects of excessive alcohol consumption at Mykonos, we basically cleared all surrounding shops of their supplies to help ease our pain on the long flight to Mew York. This is after we went to breakfast and stole enough honey to start a stall at the Glebe Markets.

Moishii is doing his last minute packing, and the ever efficient me, was bored. I was tossing between running to the Grand Bazaar for a last round of shopping, or just settle on a few of the crappy shops around our area. Ever since that coffee cup reading, I wasn't about to take any chances when we travelled incase that was the "4th road that was closed". I grab my bag and wander the streets going from shop to shop trying to find something to buy. My reasoning? I had $80 left and I didn't want to exchange it cos then I'll lose money. I spotted a leather goods shop filled with handbags. I stand outside and have a quick peek only to be disappointed by their range of goods. But still, if I wanted to spend all my $80, this was probably the best place to spend it in. I kept walking back and forth in front of the store teasing the shop keepers. In the end, the guy came out and tried to drag me in. This is when I made a quick get away and ran back to the hotel room.

I help Moishii finish packing and tell him the whole story. Apparently if I went with the Bellboy, he can get me a very good discount. E.g. 75% off. The only problem is if I go with him, I'll be obliged to buy. Even at 75% off, you can't convince me to buy a bright yellow leather handbag. Given up on the whole shopping idea, we thought it was time to get a move on. We were seriously trying to avoid tipping anyone at Erboy simply because of the trouble the Erboy bitch gave us. We dragged our 4 suitcases and 2 hand carries into the lobby, hiding around the corner so they don't spot us and don't try to help us. We flag the Bellboy who came running over to help us. Isn't that a kick in the nuts? We get the Bellboy from another hotel to come and help us! SUCK THAT BITCH! MAUahAUahAUha

We stand outside Erboy with all our luggage thinking how we can get across the road to Sude Konak because some inconsiderate prick had parked inbetween the streets and blocked everything. We decided that we should just leave all the luggage on Erboy's steps to piss them off more. This is when we realise what a good job we were doing.......LOOK AT HOW MUCH LUGGAGE WE HAVE!!!!!!!

We packed light! I swear!

Transfer guy rocks up and starts grabbing our luggage. This is when I freak out because I thought Bellboy was coming on the trip to the airport to say goodbye. Luckily he was still working and couldn't come along. We did our farewells, took a few happy snaps and hopped into the van. The trip there was fairly incident free. Maybe this had something to do with me threatening to rip the transfer guy's throat out if he went above 40km/hr. We get to the airport, and somehow managed to drag all 4 suitcases and 2 handcarries across 3 roads WITHOUT a trolley between the 2 of us. How we managed that I still don't understand....

We have our bags scanned and the guy almost threw our bags off the conveyor belt. I run through and managed to catch our luggage before they all came crashing down. I quickly spot a trolley and made a mad rush to it. With all our luggage stacked onto the one trolley (Well, I had to drag one of the suitcases myself) we found our checkin counter and started lining up. This is when some dude came up to us and started chatting us up. Apparently he wanted us to sign up for something or help him carry something overseas. For all I know it could have been drugs. Obviously we refused which was when he got pissed off and stormed off to find himself some other drug mule.

With all the luggage checked in, we go through customs and hit the shops again. I managed to find a shop that was selling Turkish cookbooks but in English. I went nuts and bought all 3 and managed to spend almost all my Turkish Liras ($60). We collected all remaining money, hit an exchange place and cashed it in for some USD. Well, we got a whole bunch of quarters and $6 or $7. We get to the boarding gate only to see a hugeeeeeeeeeeeee line. Everyone had to be screened again before they let us into the departure lounge. I line up like the good citizen that I am and managed to set off the metal detector. Must've been the huge bracelet/bangle thing I was wearing. A woman comes up to me with a hand held metal detector and starts scanning me. The alarm goes off when she runs the wand along my arms (No der. Do you not see my huge bangle?). Nothing else was setting the detector off, but just to be safe, the woman reaches out and grabs me inbetween my chest jamming her fist into me. I was about to bitch-slap her for sexual harrassment when she managed to grab my bra, give is a good squeeze and a tug before practically throwing me back into the line. Like what the hell? How would you like if I grabbed your boobs and slapped them around a bit before shoving you into a fuckin wall? BITCH!!

Moishii, who missed out on seeing the whole incident demanded that I give him a blow by blow analysis of what happened. I did the next best thing and grabbed his chest like the bitch grabbed me. The only thing is I missed and managed to dig my nail into his nipple before giving it a good pinch and tug. There was alot of screaming and rubbing himself before he would talk to me again. This is when we realise that we still had credit left on his mobile.....of course we had to call our favourite Cherry for some abusing. The only problem is that we're sitting in a departure lounge surrounded by people and it's probably not the best place to us the following terms:

- Cocopops BOMB
- Tits
- P*ssy

and a few other ones I would'nt even dignify to put into writing. We managed to whisper a few abusive phrases at her and hung up, only to still have more credits remaining. We make another call, whisper more crap into the phone whilst trying not to attract attention. We turn off our phones and start boarding the plane. This is the first time that I've flown with Luftansa. I am a loyal Singapore Airlines frequent flyer and I am used to my own tv with play on demand movies, tv shows, music and of course, nintendo games. Its been close to 10 years since I've flown with any other airline and to my shock and horror, not all airlines give you your own TV. Infact, I don't even recall seeing a TV on the damn plane! The 2 motion sickness tablets I popped was kicking in and all I wanted to do was sleep. I think I konked out before the flight even took off. I was in happy dream land when all of a sudden I fly up from my seat and only held down by my very very loosely done seatbelt. I never liked a rude awakening when I sleep anyway, let alone physically lifted out of my seat because of turbulence causing the plane to drop atleast 15ms. Like any normal person, I let out a little yelp. Now you may hear otherwise from some inconsiderate people that like to exaggerate things. They may even describe it as a bone chilling, lung bursting, eardrum erupting scream. But I can assure you, it was just a yelp. And in fact, another woman on the plane also let out a little yelp. I quickly close my eyes so people won't know that it was me and that I was asleep the entire time. Besides, like I said, the pills were kicking in.

Thinking that it was a 8 hour plane trip, I was surprised to be woken by the stewardess serving food right before we land. Apparently this was only a 3hour flight. Thinking we were landing in about 40mins, we tried to scoff our food. The only problem was they must've heated this by throwing it directly onto burning coal, because no one sitting around us could open the damn foil container without giving themselves 3rd degree burns. I resorted to wrapping my hands with huge napkins before I even went anywhere near the container. After all the trouble we went to open the damn thing, we find out that it was macaroni and cheese. FFS, if you told me that earlier, I wouldn't even bother with it.

We finally land in Frankfurt for our next flight to New York. The only problem was our gate was on the other side of the airport, and the only way to get there is by catching an airtrain. We grab our hand luggage and literally ran through the terminals and up a few flights of stairs just to find the damn train. Luckily, it was only another 800m run from the train to the security checkin and another 700m from security to the departure lounge. The line at the security checkpoint was huge. There was about 9 lines and everyone was running late for their flight. This is because they don't have the metal detecting gates and everything was handheld. We get to the front of the line and they split us up and I get sent to a woman (for obvious reasons). Now because it was a damn long flight, I had worn my jeans and thongs for comfort reason. This woman must've thought that I hid something in my thongs cos she pulled my pants up and started rubbing my bare legs. She then took the damn wand and started running it up and down my legs. I understand that I am not a guy, but fuckin hell woman, it still hurts when you use a wand and bash me in between my legs you know? Not to mention that you grabbed my chest quite roughly compared to the chick in Istanbul. I was worried that she was going to throw me onto a table and start cavity searching me any minute!!! The woman then grabs me by the waist and starts patting all over my pelvis area. I had my money belt on, which was all fabric and plastic and I knew it wasn't going to set off the metal detectors, but she made me take it off and then patted me again and made me lift my shirt! FFS. You might as well strip search me whilst you were at it. After this humiliating experience was over, we grab our bags and run for our departure lounge.

We got there and sat down whilst waiting for boarding time. 15mins pass when all of a sudden Moishii announces that he needs to pee. He gets up and leave, and within 15secs, it was boarding time and everyone stormed onto the plane leaving me there with all the luggage. He strolls back about 10mins later when almost everyone has boarded. Thinking we'll miss the plane, I practically throw him onboard.

Since I got all the flight times mixed up, thinking Istanbul -> Frankfurt was 8 hours and Frankfurt -> New York was 4 hours, it screwed up my motion sickness tablet rationing. Since I took 2 tablets for the 3 hr flight, I thought it would wear off half way through the trip to New York. And I'd rather pop a few more and be knocked out, then to be caught dope free midair and then spend the rest of the flight in the toilet. To be on the safe side, I popped another 2 pills before boarding and I would DEFINATELY be safe. BAD IDEA. I get a window seat whilst Moishii gets the middle seat. An air stewardess came along before take off asking if we were willing to sit seperately. Of course we're not willing. Instead, some ASSHOLE and BITCH behind us decided to swap seats with a mother and her kids since they didn't know each other anyway. I will never forgive those two pricks for the rest of my life.

The family had basically 3 adults and 3 kids and the kids all wanna sit with the mother but they didn't bother checking in early and therefore had to sit apart. Since those two assholes decided to switch seats, we now had the mother, the grandmother and 2 kids sitting behind us. This was fine until takeoff. The kid started crying. And I mean she was CRYING. Not only was that little brat crying, she was also kicking my seat nonstop. This then cause the brats sister to also cry. Its one big crying fest behind us. To make matters worse, I had taken a total of 4 motion sickness tablets in a period of 4 hours. You're supposed to take a maximum of 8 within a 24hour period. I was half way to the limit!! Now one of the reasons I ALWAYS buy this particular brand of motion sickness tablets is that they knock you out pretty quickly. Great for long flights when all you want to do is sleep. Not so good when you're so doped up and keep passing in and out of consciousness BECAUSE SOME FUCKIN KID IS SCREAMING THEIR LUNGS OUT AND KICKING YOUR CHAIR AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!!!

We were lucky and managed to grab a headset each since they didn't have enough. The plan was to crank up the music so we didn't have to listen to the kid cry. 3 problems.

1. The music wasn't loud enough to drown the kids screaming out
2. Even if its loud enough, I can't sleep with music, no matter how doped up I am.
3. Lets just say that I did manage to sleep without the headsets and I could ignore the screaming. Its hard to sleep when you get a full strength kick in the back every 5 seconds.

The pills were really kicking in and there was no way I could keep my eyes open. I put my seat back to try and atleast passout without cracking my head open on the seat infront of me. This is when the bitch of a mother sitting behind me TOLD me to put my seat back up cos she was trying to put her kid to sleep and there wasn't enough room for her. FUCK THE KID AND FUCK YOU WOMAN. Your bloody kid has been screaming for the past 2 hours and kicking my chair nonstop and you want me to sit up right so YOUR FUCKING KID COULD SLEEP? IF SHE COULD SLEEP IN THE FIRST PLACE, I WOULDN'T HAVE THE URGE TO SHOVE MY FREAKIN HEADPHONES DOWN HER THROAT!! I basically screamed at the woman that "I NEED SLEEP AS WELL YOU KNOW!? AND I SLEEP WITH MY SEAT BACK!!". With that, I pressed the button and slammed my back against the seat with full force. The kid is going to kick me anyway, why give her extra room to build up force before her foot made contact with my seat?

Now you would think that if your kid is screaming nonstop, you would feel guilty and take your kid for a walk up and down the aisle, or atleast near the doors where theres more room and a window for the kid to look out of. No. The bitch kept the kid behind me for the entire fuckin 8 hour flight. And the problem wasn't just her kids. Everytime her mother tried to get out of the seat, instead of getting out like a normal person, she would grab both seats infront of her (Moishii's seat and the poor dude next to him) and using her whole body weight, pull the seat back and then let go so both of them will spring back up. I didn't know what was worse, being awake for the entire duration of the trip, or passing out every few minutes only to receive a swift kick in the back to wake you back up. Moishii was trying to keep himself distracted with music, but that didn't really help. He couldn't chat to me because I was seriously passing in and out of conciousness. I would be talking one minute, sound asleep the next, only to get kicked awake a few seconds later.

Now you're wondering why the kid was screaming like so. She's sitting with her mother, the father tried to console the kid but it obviously didn't work so he had to go back to his seat. This all became clear because of 2 incidents.

1. The only 10mins of silence came when she decided to give her kids a bag of jellybeans.

2. When the food trolley came around, the woman demanded that she gets served her Kosher meal. The only thing is, she didn't request a Kosher meal when booking her ticket, nor did she call up before her trip to request it. She just expected that they could slaughter her meat Kosher style on the plane and cook her a full 3 course meal. And because of that, she refused to let her kids eat anything on the tray except the orange juice.

The kids were starving. They had no food to eat. The mother didn't bother asking for more juice to try and keep them from starving. She didn't bring any food with her, and refused to let her kids eat what was provided. Hell she didn't even bother ordering a kids meal for them. It had gotten to the stage where the kid was crying in her sleep. I turned around and saw that the kid was "asleep" on her lap, but she was still able to scream. You would think after 4 or 5 hours of nonstop screaming and lack of food, the kid would eventually pass out from exhaustion. No such luck. By the time we had touched down, thinking that the trip was finally over and we were on land, we thought the kid would stop crying. Infact, she did. At first we thought maybe the air pressure was making her ears hurt or something which was why she screamed the entire flight. No such luck. The 2mins of silence was quickly broken by more screaming. This is when I lost it and I started screaming as well. "FOR FUCKS SAKE!! WHEN THE FUCK IS SHE GOING TO STOP SCREAMING!! WE'VE FUCKIN LANDED AND SHE'S STILL SCREAMING!!! #$%^$@&^$#%&". I'll censor the rest of my language. But lets just say everyone sitting around me heard, and must've taken alot of self control to stop themselves clapping.

We get to OK to get off the plane and I practically shove everyone out of the way so we could get off. We push through the crowd and practically run to customs. WE'RE IN NEW YORK!!!!!!

The pills were starting to wear off, but the headspins weren't getting any easier with the whole sleeping tablets, cold and flu tablets and lack of sleep combination. I looked like shit and was surprised that I didn't get pulled over so they can do a scan to see if I'd swallowed any condom filled bags of drugs. The worst thing is, that look has now been captured by the US government and put onto their permanent record. Yes, I had my photo taken and my fingerprints scanned. There goes my criminal plans in the US....

I spot a trolley vending machine thing. I entered $4 worth of quarters, grabbed our trolley and stood by the baggage conveyor belt. This is when I hear the kid screaming behind me. I turn expecting the bitch to be standing behind me. To my surprise, they were atleast 50m away and I could still hear them! I grabbed the trolley and moved to the furthest end possible.

As we were waiting for the luggage, we somehow managed to stand in a spot where all the old women and men are waiting. Their huge suitcases would come around, but they wouldn't be able to get it off the belt. Somehow, Moishii and another guy ended up pulling about 15 bags off the belt for other people. Moishii ended up skinning his finger when trying to grab one of the suitcases and managed to bleed all over it. Lets just hope that that suitcase will never be involved in a murder mystery.

Now based on the photo above, you must all think that we were crazy to have all that luggage. So did we. Until we saw one guy pull bag after bag after bag off the belt. He ended up getting a porter who helped him wheel 10, and I counted 10 bags away! If only we got a photo! But no photos inside the airport at the US. We finally collect all our bags and head out. We found an information desk to ask them how much it is to catch a shuttle bus to the hotel. She answered $17 each. Without even saying another word, she picks up the phone, asks my name, and 2mins later informed me that a guy from the shuttle bus will come and pick us up. Alrighty then........

We spot a Kripsy Kreme "stand". Well its not. Its actually a cafe with a cabinet full of Kripsy Kremes. We were hungry, but didn't think it was fair to have left over KKs when we were sure we could find the real fresh stuff. We decided to just wait until we get to the hotel and then eat. The guy comes and picks us up. We drag our bags to the shuttle bus and he manages to shove our bags into the back. We get in and there was already a dude there. Thinking "Cool! we get the van pretty much to ourselves" we start driving. Next thing you know, we went from Terminal 1 (Where we were) to Terminal 2 where we picked up 2 more dudes. They get in and shove their bags into the back. Next stop, Terminal 3. Then Terminal 4......and so forth until we get to Terminal 7. By this stage, the back of the van is so full, you could not see out the back window. The luggage was also hanging half way into the back seat. If the guy slams on the brake, the guy behind me would cop a flying suitcase to the back of his head. By the time we had picked everyone up, it had taken 45mins. We then slowly crawled along the streets of New York.

We had to drop some asian dude off who couldn't stop talking to the driver. It was like he was giving a commentary for everything we drove by. "Oh. That place has really good congee. Do you know what congee is? Its like a rice porridge! Yeh, that place makes really good ones. You should go and try it one day". And he kept going on and on about his bullshit. The 2 guys behind me was clicking their fingers and tapping their knees to the radio. After the 8 hour flight with the kid, all I wanted to do was turn around and break his fingers off. To make things worse, my cough has developed into some full blown coughing fit. However, I was considerate enough to not cough out loud every single time a fit came along, just so I wouldn't annoy other people. Do you know how hard it is to try and not cough when you're having an attack? The more you try to hold it in, the worse it gets. I was dying to get off the shuttle bus, but we were going no where. We were also starving. All we saw when we looked out the window was Maccas, KFC, night clubs, outdoor cafes and restaurants, hot dog vendor stands and so on and so on. Luckily, I had stocked up on lollies before leaving Sydney. I cracked open the sugar and we started sucking on every lolly I could lay my hands on.

An hour later, we were still stuck in the traffic. The asian guy got dropped off in the middle of the bridge. The next guy was getting the shits as to how long it was taking. He kept saying to the guy "You can drop me off here and I can walk you know?". The driver must have been deaf or didn't give a shit. The guy eventually got the shits and screamed "PULL BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD!!! I'M GETTING OUT!! I'LL GET HOME FASTER IF I WALKED!!!!!!". So we drop the guy off the middle of the street and continued on our journey. The next stop was our hotel. I was so hungry I was ready to bite Moishiis arm. Our last decent meal was breakfast, where I was too sick to eat anything decent anyway. The other meals had all been crappy over cooked plane food and the packet of lollies I had. As we pull up to our hotel, I spot a HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE maccas across the road. Atleast I know food was close. We jump off, grab our bags, tip the guy and push our way into the hotel. Look at the lobby!!




We check into our room, physically throw everything down. We didn't even take our shoes off. We grabbed our wallets and ran out searching for food. We're back in the downstairs lobby when we notice a restaurant/cafe thing to our right hand side. Thinking its hotel food and that it'll cost us an arm and a leg, we left the hotel, turned left and started searching for food. Every shop we walked by looked like it was food poisoning waiting to happen. The only store we wanted to go into was a Taco Bell/Dunkin Donuts place which was closed. I didn't want to have typical fast food because we were in America and I wanted to go to a Diner and order a huge ass burger and fried. We walked up and down 3 blocks before we give up and hit the Maccas across the road from the hotel instead.

Now let me remind you before we go on, that we haven't had a decent meal the entire day. We walk into Maccas and immediately order a large big mac meal each. If they still had the super size me option, we both would've super sized it. We get our meals and start scoffing. Before we even finish our meal, we both decided that there wasn't enough food and went and ordered a 6pack of nuggets and 3 chicken strips that were bigger than drumsticks. We managed to demolish everything infront of us when we realised that we spent close to $15USD each. Thats almost $20AUD!! WE SPENT $20AUD ON MACCAS!!!!

We stumble out of maccas clutching our stomache and I spot a Duane Reades shop across the road. Considering the amout of time we spent on the shuttlebus listening to the radio, I knew immediately that it was a convenience store/chemist. We run in and I quickly hit the medicine isle and loaded up on cough syrups, Vicks sinex nasal sprays (My best friend) and a pack of every type of cough lollies they were selling. We then grabbed a few bottles of water, Junior Mints (Which are like mint slices, but smaller and better) and cookies. We line up at the cash register when this guy comes running up to us and starts telling us that he's running late for work and really needs to buy a packet of gum. All he wanted to do was jump infront of us to pay for his gum. We let him jump the queue, but the queue wasn't moving. We stood there for close to 10mins waiting for the line to move, but the moron at the cash register had stuffed something up. Meanwhile, the guy was all fidgety and hopping around going on and on about how he's going to be late for work and all he wanted to do was buy gum. Who the hell would rock up to work late knowing that they'll get into deep shit over gum! Buy the damn gum in your spare time FFS!! Eventually, he managed to convince the guy to pay for him. He'll give him the money and the can pay the dude at the register. The only problem was he didn't know how much the gum was, and he didn't want to rip the guy off so he gave him $2 (Which is like $3 for gum), but the guy didn't want to keep the change, so both of them ended up waiting at the register. When it was finally their turn, the guy scans the gum, throws the money down and bolts out of the store knocking people over on his way out. He must've wanted the gum REALLY REALLY badly.

We pay for our stuff and make our way back to the hotel. This is when we discovered Tick tock. Tick tock is basically a typical American Diner that was RIGHT NEXT to the hotel. It was Diner, hotel, shop. We were so desperate for food, we ran out of the hotel and turned left without even checking what was to the right of the hotel. We kick ourselves for not looking closely, but we were so tired we didn't care.

How we missed the bright neon lights is beyond me...

We take the lift back up to the hotel and dump our stuff. I quickly hit the shower. It was absolutely awesome!! We haven't had a decent shower since we left Sydney. All the showers in Istanbul and Greece either had no water pressure, or they don't provide proper shower curtains and you end up flooding the bathroom. This shower had the perfect water pressure and temperature. You were standing in a huge bathtub with thick long shower curtains so you don't flood the place and manage to step out of the shower onto dry land. I was in heaven. As I was enjoying our shower, I started to think what an awesome hotel we had! We are close to transport and shopts, had a double bed each, a fridge, TV, airconditioning, ROOM TO MOVE, extra cupboards to stash our unwanted suitcases, nice thick fluffy towels and a decent shower. This is when it hit me. We're paying $150 per person per night for this bloody room. I practically burst into tears in the shower.

Soft comfy double beds....luxary never to be taken for granted!!

You see, we don't really plan for anything. The whole us going to US thing came about because I wanted to get 67kg of luggage, and the only way to do that is to get a round the world ticket that stops at the US. The choice was San Fran or LA as those are the only 2 ports we can fly directly back to Sydney. Now I don't mind going to LA, but Moishii had already been to LA on the previous trip. And I really wanted to go either New York, Las Vegas or Hawaii. New York was the only city that didn't require us to change like 3 flights to get to Sydney. So New York and San Fran it was. The only problem was when we decided on New York, we didn't realise how much it was going to cost us. This was the cheapest accomodation we could find and it was $150 per person per night. I'm still hurting everytime I think of this fact.

We set our alarms for the next day and get ready for bed. At first we tried to sleep without the aircon and all you could hear was the noise down from the streets. Moishii screams at me to close the window so we could get some sleep. I turn on the light to find all the windows shut tightly. The only way to drown out the noise was to crank up the aircon and I was sleeping right infront of it. Luckily we had a nice soft bed and thick doonas. And after the whole debacle on the plane, nothing was really going to keep me from passing out into a deep deep sleep.